Starting a Bullet Journal – My progress so far

I finally got on that Bullet Journal bandwagon.

I’d had enough of drooling over the designs of other people and not being as organised as I wanted to be. So I bought a Bullet Journal and got started. It did take me a while as I skipped January all together as it took me a whole month to get the supplies, find the journal itself and organize my main layout.

After researching like crazy I bit the bullet (pun not intended) and figured I would never start and never be happy if I kept going. This is a work in progress, you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t as you go on. So I’m okay with at least my first bullet journal to be a little all of the place until I learn what works for me and what doesn’t. That is Part of the fun.

Supplies

All you really need is the book and a couple pens to get started. I have a very minimal list of supplies ATM. I hope to grow it but for now it is all I need to stay organised while keeping up some sort of aesthetic.

My supplies:

Leuchtturm 1917 Dotted Journal in Orange

Pigma Micron Pens sizes 01-05 and their brush pen

Tombow ABT Pens

Uni-ball Signo White Felt tip

Renoir glue tape

Staedtler Triplus Fineliner coloured pens

Pentel 120 A3DX 0.5mm Pencil

Coloured Card and normal Cardboard

Washi Tape

Ruler

Eraser

The Journal

I started with no full knowledge. I’ve seen bits and pieces of bullet journals, watched a couple videos but I didn’t understand the variety of them. Until I got into that black-hole of videos and blogs once I decided to go ahead with one. I blame Alice mostly. She got me into the idea of them and how easy it was to start.

It took me a whole month to find the right bullet journal. Being the perfectionist I am I knew it had to be orange. Do you know how hard it is to find an orange Leuchtturm Journal. A month of hard work, that’s what. I tried every store, even online and everyone was sold out. It wasn’t till I strolled into the city that a fresh shipment of journals were being unpacked onto the desk, and the heavens shone down onto the group of orange dotted journals.

I’ve heard Leuchtturm be used by nearly every bullet journal enthusiast so I knew it wold be a good place to start. There are others on the market so you can research what will work best for you, I just knew these were quality journals and the dots made it easy to plan out spreads.

An Inside Look

I don’t have as many starting pages because I don’t really need them. Here is what I found I would use and want in my first bullet journal. You can add, take away and choose what you want to track, create and use in your own. That’s why I like them so much, you can give and take what you need and if you find you need something in the future just add it in later!

Yearly spread and index page: I love my index as it is simple and colourful. I was inspired by AmandaRachLee for most of my spreads, just putting my own twist on them. The yearly spread still needs decorated, plus it goes into next year due to my layout planning, I still like it.

WIP: I have a few pages that are still a work in progress or will be covered by card and redone. Below are two examples; my blank page will probably turn into a travel planner and the goals for 2018 needs to be covered and rewritten. The Blog post ideas was horrible so I cut out cardboard jaggered the edges, glued it to the page using the tape and made the heading below. Simple but effective for covering up what I didn’t want.

Tracker and Moon Phases: The moon phases was more of a fun page for me, I don’t know if it’ll turn into a doodle page or if I’ll write stone and moon meanings on it but I just love the look of it. For the trackers, I didn’t want to have a mood tracker every month, so I made my mood tracker a yearly spread where I can also mark off my period as I always forget when I’m due. I think it’ll be interesting to see if my mood changes along side it and if there is a pattern.

Has it Helped

So far so good. I’m on track, I have kept up with all my plans and events and figured out when I’m free. I do however need to work out the best way to track my blog, keep up with work outside of work and stay motivated. But that is mainly me who has to change that and not an inanimate object.

It’s really fun and a great project to sit down to when you have extra time to make the spreads really pop. For when you’re busy as hell it’s also easy to just jot some notes down and add them in later. It really is the best of a classic diary made for busy and ever changing lives. I can’t wait to see how it evolves over the year!

Let me know if you also have a bullet journal. I’d love to see some of your spreads for inspiration! Leave it all below. x